Roughly 1/3rd of mRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Recipients Experience 'Unintended Immune Response in the Body' Caused by 'Frameshifting': Cambridge University, Journal 'Nature'

The body attacks its own proteins.

In a startling new study, researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Medical Research Council (MRC) Toxicology Unit have uncovered a significant unintended immune response triggered by mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in approximately one-third (25-30%) of recipients.

This response is attributed to a “glitch” in how the body interprets the vaccine’s genetic instructions.

The study, recently published in the journal Nature, revealed that the cellular machinery responsible for interpreting mRNA—the messenger ribonucleic acid, a crucial component in these vaccines—often misreads the sequence due to a chemical modification found in mRNA therapeutics.

This modification component, known as N1-methylpseudouridine, causes the ribosome, the protein-making machinery in the body, to “slip” around 10% of the time.

The Cambridge research team, led by biochemist Professor Anne Willis and immunologist Dr. James Thaventhiran, found that when confronted with a string of modified bases, like N1-methylpseudouridine, the body’s protein-making machine sometimes stumbles over these synthetic alternatives.

The misstep can cause a momentary pause, akin to a bike slipping a gear, leading to a process called “frameshifting.”

Frameshifting disrupts the way the genetic code is read, as it depends on groups of three bases, or codons, being read in sequence.

Consequently, the entire subsequent code becomes garbled.

In the context of COVID vaccines, this issue translates into the production of a protein that the body identifies as foreign, resulting in an immune system response.

In other words, the slippage leads to the production of unintended “rogue” proteins, enough to elicit an immune system “flare-up” response in which the body “attacks” the proteins it has made.

Notably, removing these N1-methylpseudouridine sequences from the mRNA effectively prevents the production of these “off-target” proteins, according to the study.

These findings build upon decades of research in the field, where RNA is often seen as a foreign invader by the body.

A Nobel Prize in 2023 was awarded to scientists who worked on replacing one of the RNA bases, uridine, with a synthetic alternative, aiming to prevent the immune system from attacking the jab.

However, the Cambridge team’s discovery indicates that even this modification can lead to unintended consequences.

Billions of doses of Moderna and Pfizer mRNA coronavirus vaccines have been delivered worldwide.

“The safety concern for future mRNA medicines is that mis-directed immunity has huge potential to be harmful, so off-target immune responses should always be avoided,” joint senior author of the report and the MRC Toxicology Unit’s Dr. Thaventhiran stated, despite praising the COVID shots. “We need to ensure that mRNA vaccines of the future are as reliable. Our demonstration of ‘slip-resistant’ mRNAs is a vital contribution to future safety of this medicine platform.”

Dr. Willis, Director of the MRC Toxicology Unit and joint senior author of the report, noted her desire “to prevent any future safety problems.”